A discussion of motivation for
creativity within the business
context
From the perspective of the Generation Y
Authors:
Wei Zheng
Borja Pablo Pelayo
Tutor:
Dr. Philippe Daudi and Dr.
Nils Nilsson
Program:
Master's Program in
Leadership and Management
in an International Context
Subject:
Business Administration
Level and semester: Masterlevel Spring 2009
Baltic Business School
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all, we would like to express our gratitude to all persons for helping us in this Master Thesis To Dr. Nils Nilsson for helping us to “keep our energy flowing”, and for those “illumination” moments
that have been so useful to our research. Thank you.
To Dr. Philippe Daudi for his wise advises and encouragements to achieve better and better, but also for take us in this superb master programme. Thank you.
To Dr. Björn Bjerke for his individual lecture about the paradigm shift. Thank you. To Dr. Mikael Lundgren for being part of the Thesis Committee. Thank you.
To Dr. Katarina Zambrell and Lasse Johanson for their valuable time and attentiveness, since without them it would not support our conjectures. Thank you.
To our friends that devoted one afternoon of their life to answer our “weird” questions. Thank you. To all our colleagues from the Leadership and Management in an International Context Programme
for this fantastic year impossible to forget. Thank you.
To our families and friends for reasons they all know well. Thank you.
To all those who have a dream, because the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. Thank you.
ABSTRACT
Creativity is one of the “hottest” words in today’s business world. Especially in the trend of globalization and fast development of the modern technology, creativity has become the most effective way for companies to survive and stay competitive in global market.
Due to the importance of creativity, various researches have been conducted and it has been studied from many possible perspectives. The purpose of our study is to understand how to motivate the new generation—the Generation Y, who is getting into workforce, to be creative. After we understand the new blood, we will move one step forward and try to find out what is happening in companies regarding the motivation of young employees.
In this Master Thesis, a variety of theories in the realms of creativity, motivation, social change and management innovation will be reviewed and applied to guide our research. We will analyze the interviews conducted to several young people and two experts to get a deeper understanding on Generation Y. Then we will study the cases of Microsoft and Pixar to understand what companies are doing. Finally, some possible advice and suggestions to company managers and leaders will be presented in the conclusion.
iii TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF FIGURES...vi
LIST OF TABLES... vii
1. INTRODUCTION ...1
1.1. Background ...1
1.2. Creativity & Innovation...2
1.3. Generation Change ...3
1.4. The Saturated Self and the Postmodern Society ...4
1.5. Paradigm Shift...5
1.6. The Importance of the Study ...6
1.7. The Research Questions...7
2. CRITICAL LITERATURE REVIEW AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK .9 2.1. Definition of Creativity ...9
2.2. Where is the Origin of Creativity? ...11
2.2.1. The Greeks and the Classics...12
2.2.2. Unconscious Thinking –Sigmund Freud & Henri Poincaré ...13
2.2.3. Leaps of insights...14
2.2.4. Divergent Thinking and Creative Personality...14
2.2.5. Psychometric Perspective...15
2.2.6. Evolutionary Theories of Creativity...18
2.2.7. Cognitive Perspective: Creative Thinking and Ordinary Thinking ...18
2.3. Motivation for Creativity...19
2.3.1. Abraham Maslow and his “Hierarchy of Needs” ...19
2.3.2. Douglas McGregor: Theory X and Theory Y ...21
2.3.3. Frederick Herzberg and his Motivator-Hygiene Theory...21
2.3.4. Victor Vroom and his Expectancy Theory ...23
2.3.5. Amabile’s Extrinsic & Intrinsic Theory ...24
2.3.6. Adair and the Fifty-Fifty Rule...25
2.4. The Link with Management and Leadership ...26
2.4.1. Amabile’s Componential Theory...26
2.4.2. John Adair – The Eight Principles of Motivation...27
2.5. Conceptual Framework ...29
3. METHODOLOGY...30
3.2. Qualitative and Quantitative Data ...30 3.3. Research Strategy...31 3.3.1. Case Study...31 3.4. Data Collection...32 3.4.1. Primary Data ...33 3.4.2. Secondary Data...34 3.5. Ethical issues...36
3.6. Quality of our research...36
3.7. Limitations...38
4. THE GENERATION Y COMES ON THE BUSINESS SCENE...39
4.1. Introduction ...39
4.2. The General Picture of the Yers...39
4.2.1. Description of the Generation...39
4.2.2. Work as Part of Life ...41
4.2.3. Issues when Choosing a Job...41
4.2.4. Ideal Manager...42
4.2.5. Identity...44
4.3. A Connection Between Motivation and Identity ...45
4.3.1. Identity and Motivation...45
4.3.2. For Business and Organizations...46
4.4. Modified Conceptual Framework...51
5. ISSUES TO CONSIDER UNDER THE CURRENT CIRCUMSTANCES ...52
5.1. Case Study #1: Microsoft and the Windows Security Test Team...52
5.1.1. General Introduction of Microsoft...52
5.1.2. Introduction of the Windows Security Test Team...52
5.1.3. Trust-based Evolution of the Team...53
5.1.4. The Prosperity of the 42 Projects...55
5.1.5. Summary of the Community and Consequence ...56
5.2. Case Study #2: Pixar Animation Studio ...57
5.2.1. Background of the Pixar ...57
5.2.2. Relationship with Disney...59
5.2.3. Key Persons at Pixar...60
v
5.3.2. Communication ...68
5.3.3. Peer Culture...69
5.3.4. Freedom ...70
5.3.5. Leadership and Vision...70
5.3.6. People at the Centre of the Organization ...72
5.3.7. Challenge ...73
5.3.8. Passion and Interest...74
5.3.9. Hire Based on Potential ...74
5.3.10. Sense of belonging...75
5.4. Summary ...75
6. CONCLUSION ...77
6.1. Further Research Recommendations ...79
7. REFERENCES ...80
7.1. Published Materials ...80
List of Figures
Figure 1.1 The mind’s eye...6
Figure 2.1 Csikszentmihalyi’s systems view of creativity ...10
Figure 2.2 The Greek’s mysterious explanation of creativity ...13
Figure 2.3 Creativity is located in the thinking process...15
Figure 2.4 Component model of creativity ...16
Figure 2.5 The psychometric perspective of creativity...18
Figure 2.6 Expectancy theory...23
Figure 2.7 Impact of the organizational environment on creativity...26
Figure 2.8 The conceptual framework ...29
Figure 3.1 Methods of data collection...33
Figure 3.2 Types of Interviews...34
Figure 3.3 Our research path...36
Figure 4.1 Traditional role of the manager...42
Figure 4.2 New perspective of the manager’s role ...43
Figure 4.3 The notion of multi-identity within the conceptual framework ...45
Figure 4.4 The connection between traits, identity and motivation...46
Figure 4.5 Paradigm shift #1: From “Knowing the way” to “Showing the way”...47
Figure 4.6 Paradigm shift #2: From “Organization-centred leadership” to “People-centred leadership”...48
Figure 4.7 Paradigm shift #3: From “Intellectual Intelligence” to “Emotional Intelligence”...48
Figure 4.8 Paradigm shift #4: From “Traditional training” to “New training perspective” ...49
Figure 4.9 Paradigm shift #5: From “Traditional view of manager” to “Manager as mentor”...49
Figure 4.10 Paradigm shift #6: From “In general terms” to “Individual by individual” ...50
vii
Figure 4.12 Paradigm shift #8: From “Traditional bureau” to “Communities”...51
Figure 4.13 The conceptual framework 2.0...51
Figure 6.1 The cobweb of the identified issues ...77
List of Tables
Table 2.1 Two theories of creative thinking ...15Table 2.2 Two confluence models of creativity ...17
Table 4.1 The Generation Y traits ...40
1. Introduction
The introduction chapter of the thesis will discuss the process of globalization and the importance of creativity and innovation. Then, we will move forward to the discussion of the generational change. And finally, we will present some issues of the postmodernism and the paradigm shift. The main objective of this chapter is to inform the reader about the importance of the study, and the research questions that could emerge.
1.1. Background
Globalization is a “buzz word” which appears everywhere nowadays. You can read it from all kinds of media, you can feel it in your daily lives, and you have even been involved in the trend of globalization and are making your contribution to it.
Harvey and Novicevic (2002) attribute globalization generally to four factors as follows: 1) Macro-economic factors. As the classical international trade theories state, every country has
its own comparative advantages due to different resource endowment. A country should develop industries according to its comparative advantages. Therefore, countries have different roles to play in international trade. Meanwhile, the increasing gap between developed and developing countries demands the deeper international collaboration, in terms of economy, politics and culture (Harvey & Novicevic, 2002).
2) Political factors. Regional integration is sought in order to overcome tariff barriers and encourage trade and resource flow, such as capital, personnel and raw material. Various organizations, such as United Nations, International Monetary Fund and World Bank, have been formed in order to encourage international trade, accelerate the development of emerging countries and protect the stable environment for globalization (Harvey & Novicevic, 2002).
3) Technological factors. The fast development of technology is decreasing the cost of communication and transportation to a very large degree. It makes the form of multinational company possible. Large companies go to developing countries to explore cheaper resources and potential market. Meanwhile, the knowledge transfer and the rapid growth of knowledge-intensive industries give developing countries a short cut to catch up (Harvey & Novicevic, 2002).
2
visible. Multinational companies stimulate the flow of all kinds of resources and connect the fragmented market into a whole piece (Harvey & Novicevic, 2002).
Although the debate about globalization has never ended, the trend of globalization will never stop. The fast transfer of the latest technologies and the reduce of the cost make the products increasingly homogenize in the world market. Furthermore, customers have the opportunities to make choices in the range of the whole world and companies have been losing the original protection from the government and border. Therefore, companies are exposed directly to fierce competition. To most products, the market today is determined by the customers' demand because the supply exceeds the demand. This is a usual phenomenon due to the fast growth of productivity. So far, we can see a world market today with what we call hyper-competition (D’ Aveni, 2007).
Harvey and Novicevic (2002) summarize several characteristics of hyper-competition. In first term, the relative competitive advantages are becoming fragile and very difficult to sustain. Therefore, companies should be aware of this and keep updating their competitive advantages. Moreover, strategies are losing the long-term effect and need to be formulated constantly to gain temporary competitive advantages. In addition, the life cycles of products, technologies, relationship and the like are becoming shorter and shorter. Harvey and Novicevic (2002) also state that the conventional industry boundaries are becoming blur and new industries are emerging. Finally, the competition in global markets are becoming increasingly fierce and intense; therefore, constant change in short timeframe is indispensible.
1.2. Creativity & Innovation
Under the circumstances presented above, companies do not have much leeway. Many researchers have identified creativity and innovation as a vital strategy for survival, and to some extent the reality is confirming so (Walmsley, 2007). The management teams are becoming more and more worried; new products and services are changing the competitive dynamics or their industries in ways that they are not able to anticipate (D’Aveni, 2007). New competitors are entering in the market, new fresh business models has invaded in the traditional competitive dynamic, and companies are using new channels to market their products. As a consequence, the industry leadership is changing hands with more frequency than ever, and competitive advantages are no longer sustainable over the long run (D’Aveni, 2007).
Therefore, in a period of intense change, companies need to adapt and evolve rapidly in order to thrive in the new markets environment. One possible solution for organizations is to embrace creativity and innovation into their business system (D’Aveni, 2007). Nevertheless, creativity and innovation should not only be implemented at the corporate level, but it should be at
every level (Walmsley, 2007). Creativity and innovation is helping companies to increase their capacity to evolve or to respond to fresh consumers, and ultimately to achieve competitive advantage (D’Aveni, 2007).
However, companies must take into account that it is not possible to sustain a competitive advantage in the long term under these circumstances. Therefore, companies need to use creativity and innovation to migrate as quickly as possible from one competitive advantage to another (D’Aveni, 2007).
D’Aveni (2007) has discussed a new set of guidelines for companies in order to compete under the shifting circumstances of hyper-competition. Among many of them, “stakeholder satisfaction
is the key to winning each dynamic interaction with competitors”. However, stakeholders understood in a
sense that embraces both customers and employees. Employees should be empowered to create new processes, methods and products for increasing customer satisfaction (D’Aveni, 2007). Therefore, if employees play an important role, managers and leaders “must learn how to inspire their
employees to give the very best of themselves every day” (Hamel, 2007).
1.3. Generation Change
Grouping people into different generations is one of the ways that sociology has to understand people’s behaviour. People born in different years have different priorities, attitudes, and even values. Therefore, they interact and behave differently in the workplace, and companies need to adapt according the times.
Nowadays, there are three different generations in the workplace: the Baby Boomers, the Generation X and the Generation Y (NAS Recruitment, 2006). The Baby Boomers are about to retire; they were raised under the circumstances of the post-World War II. Then, the Generation X appears in this hierarchy of generations. Members of Generation X were born between in the 60s and 70s (McCrindle, 2006). And actually, members of the Generation Y are entering in the workplace. Three generations being at the same time in the workplace is generating intergenerational conflicts and uncertainty, for both employees and organizations (NAS Recruitment, 2006).
Our main focus is the members of the Generation Y, also called Millennial Generation. They were born between the end of the 70s and the beginning of the 90s; they are the largest proportion of the population in US for instance, around 20% of the population. The Millennial Generation is characterized by being racially and ethically diverse. They are also extremely independent, they have built a strong sense of security and optimism about the future due to the overprotection received
4
In general terms, Generation Y is approaching the work place with extremely high expectations and ambition. In addition, they are technological savvy and highly learning-oriented. In somehow, they need to fulfil their expectations, if not they would leave the organization and move to others which meet their expectations (NAS Recruitment, 2006).
The most arduous generational clash is happening between Generation X and the Millennial Generation (Thielfoldt & Scheef, 2004). “I had to work to get here, why don’t they?” As we will discuss lately, in the research part, they have more similarities than differences. However, these few differences and their competiveness are the main sources of the generational clash between Generation X and Generation Y that are experimenting many organizations nowadays.
In this sense, generational conflicts are inevitable. Nevertheless, organizations can certainly manage them. They need to adapt their recruiting process, their mentoring and training practices, but also the manner in which they motivate their employees (NAS Recruitment, 2006 et al). Therefore, companies should consider a reformulation of the pre-existing paradigm of how they approach their employees.
1.4. The Saturated Self and the Postmodern Society
Before the revolution of industrialization, people lived in an agricultural world. Most of them spent their whole lives in the same place and had never been to some other places relatively far away. It was very difficult for them to go to other countries, not to mention other continents or the other side of the earth. Therefore, Columbus and Magallanes were among the greatest people in their time.
However, technology has changed people's lives fundamentally. Railway and steamboat can make a British gentleman travel around the world in 80 days. The advent of airplane reduces the time to as short as one day. Radio accelerated the speed of spreading information. The invention of telephone made long distance communication possible. All of these pull people scattering around the world closer. People have the opportunities to meet more other people than ever in history. The borders of countries began to blur and the earth became a global village.
The popularity of television deepened a phenomenon which began from the start of industrialization -self-multiplication (Gergen, 1991), which means the capacity to be significantly present in more than one place at a time. In the face-to face era, human beings’ social impact was strictly restricted by space and time. However, the communication and visual technologies multiple human beings’ power of influence. Lately, the rampant development of Internet, like an explosion, has been generating an exponential increase in self-multiplication. Meanwhile, these technologies have been expanding to a very large extent the range and variety of human beings’ relationship. With
the increasing mobility of human beings and expanding means of communication, people are interwoven together tightly and the relationship between people are becoming unprecedented complicated (Gergen, 1991).
In Kenneth Gergen’s book “The Saturated Self” (1991), he calls this phenomenon social saturation of relationship. This social saturation leads to the change of the whole society from modern to postmodern. Due to the increasingly complicated relationship, people are playing different social roles and taking in these roles as a part of the selves unconsciously, which inevitably leads to the populating of selves. Since people have so many roles to play, and they also have the capability to maintain and explore these roles due to the development of technologies; the focus of their lives are becoming blur and the phenomenon of “multiphrenia” (Gergen, 1991) appeared. Multiphrenia refers to the individual’s experience of conflict in values, ideals, opinions, and motives (Blackwell, 2007). Gergen believes that people are splitting themselves into a multiplicity of self-investments. As the society is experiencing drastic shift and the information explosion, people come to realize that their understandings of the reality or facts is based on different perspectives, which vary from person to person and group to group. People begin to lose their original values and sense of their selves.
Gergen (1991) further explains the postmodern society based on the technological root mentioned above. The loss of identity is the direct impact. The complicated relationship and social construction of identity confuse people’s sense of identity. They are changing the roles they play in society constantly, and consequently lose the focus of lives. The authority is being challenged. Because people have realized that reality or facts are constructed upon perspectives, they begin to doubt the authority and try to understand the world from their own perspectives. Therefore, boundaries are becoming blur and the identifiable is disappearing.
To some extend, the shift from modern to postmodern society has a great impact on the generational change. In that sense, many of the priorities, attitudes and the sense of identity of the Generation Y could be explained to a large extend by the postmodern society. Therefore, we can trace connection between the Generation Y and the postmodern society; and it would enrich the discussion of our thesis.
1.5. Paradigm Shift
The term of paradigm shift was coined for the first time by Thomas Kuhn in his book “The
Structure of Scientific Revolution”. The main idea of his work was to describe a change in some
6
field. He supports the idea of science as “a series of peaceful interludes punctuated by intellectually violent
revolutions”, and in each revolution one conceptual perspective is replaced by another. Moreover,
Kuhn (cited in Van Gelder, 1996) suggests that traditional scientists are not free thinkers, but to some extent they are conservative by accepting the established knowledge. In doing so, they are accepting a paradigm.
In this situation, a revolutionary scientist may appear to challenge the current paradigm and the established knowledge. Then, a revolution takes place and a new paradigm is built. At this point, one part of the scientific community may conserve the old paradigm assumptions, and other part may adopt the new revolutionary paradigm (cited in Van Gelder, 1996).
Figure 1.1 - The mind’s eye (Jastrow, 1899) Do you see a duck? Or a rabbit? Kuhn pretended to explain how paradigm shift could change the perception of these lines.
Kuhn (cited in Van Gelder, 1996) states that the paradigm shift occurs just when a given scientific discipline changes from one paradigm to another, and the majority of the scientific community accept the new paradigm.
1.6. The Importance of the Study
The circumstances described above have a certain impact on today’s business world. Perhaps some of them are not on the surface, and it is rather difficult to perceive and confront them.
It is clearly seen by many researchers that companies and organizations need to adapt to the new times. The necessity of change comes both from inside and outside of the organization. As we stated before, companies are interacting in this high competitive environment. Organizations face competition from all possible different fronts. A new competitor may appear in a Southeast Asian country offering exactly the same product as your company but producing it 45% cheaper; or a company from other industry may absorb part of your market share. Competition is everywhere. And as Gary Hamel (2007) states: “Out there in some garage is an entrepreneur who’s forging a bullet with your
company’s name on it. You’ve got one option now – to shoot first. You’ve got to out-innovate the innovators”. There
are many examples that proved creativity and innovation as a possible solution to surviving in the hyper-competitive era.
However, the necessity of change is also rooted inside the organization. As we mentioned before, the generational conflicts are unavoidable, but certainly manageable. Generation Y is approaching the workplace with fresh ideas, but also with high expectations and ambitions that are crashing head on with the pre-existing paradigm.
And if you take into consideration the shift that the entire society is experimenting from the modern to the post-modern era, and its implications in terms of identity, consumption and marketing, we are facing an interesting scenario worth studying and discussing from the perspective of management and leadership.
In addition, this cross-discussion could be located in the frame in the ongoing debate about Management Innovation. Gary Hamel (2009) and many other management gurus have identified some challenges that organizations should pay attention to. They mainly conclude that companies and organizations should pay more attention to human beings (Hamel, 2007). Many of those challenges are closely related with our research. Hence, the main importance of the study does not reside in the need to change what is suggested above, but a more deep need: the need to humanize organizations.
1.7. The Research Questions
There have been many researches and case studies about the perfect environment or the adequate leadership traits to foster and enhance creativity within the business context. It is not something “creative” at all.
Nevertheless, what could be something novel and useful for companies and organizations is the way they are embracing Generation Y. As we have mentioned above, each generation is different and behave differently in the workplace. Therefore, companies and organizations should figure out the adequate practice to motivate their employees and get the very best out of them.
We have considered adequate and interesting to discuss and understand the current generation change from the perspective of paradigm shift by analyzing not only the difference among different generation, but also understanding the variables and the structure of the suitable model for new generations.
8
Nevertheless, the discussion would not be complete, unless we do translate the new paradigm into the framework of management and leadership. Companies and organizations need to adapt to the new paradigm. Many of them are already changing their practices and attitudes. For instance, we have considered interesting to discuss through several case studies how companies are using games and converting companies into communities to foster creativity.
In consequence, the second research question is: What are the main issues that managers and leaders need to consider under the current paradigm?
2. Critical Literature Review and Conceptual Framework
In the second chapter we will focus on the concepts of creativity, motivation and the influence of management and leadership in both. Firstly, we will discuss the main theories regarding creativity. From these theories, it would emerge the notion of motivation. And in last term, we will present the different models or approaches to influence on creativity and motivation from the business perspective. This second chapter will conclude with the presentation of our conceptual framework.
2.1. Definition of Creativity
According to Ford and Gioia’s (1995) definition, creativity is a context-specific, subjective judgment of the novelty and value of an outcome of an individual’s or a collective’s behaviour. To disassemble this definition, we have three aspects to analyze. First, creativity is about novelty or difference, a deviation from the ordinary. This is the superficial meaning of creativity. Literally speaking, a creative idea must be a new idea.
However, a new idea is not necessarily a creative idea, which leads to the second aspect of creativity—value and usefulness. From the perspective of business and management, the reason why we do research on creativity is because creativity will bring us new motion to move forward and new opportunities to create value. Therefore, a creative idea must be valuable; otherwise, it would be meaningless for us to study it. Third, the criteria of judging novelty and usefulness are dependent upon specific context. Novelty is always relative. An idea might be new to certain people, within certain context. However, the same idea might be old if it was put within another context. The same idea could also be applied to the concept of value. For instance, an idea will be valuable in some industry, but not valuable at all in another industry. That means creativity also tends to be judged subjectively. Among other researchers, Amabile (1997) also has the same opinion on the definition of creativity.
Csikszentmihalyi (cited in Weisberg, p.62) expresses the same definition by depicting a creative process. This process emphasizes on how to prove the value of a new idea. An individual, who is working in some domain, has a novel production. In order to make it public, he or she has to present the production to the field, which consists of the individuals who also work in the same domain. These individuals will play the role of gatekeeper to the domain. They will evaluate the production to see if it is valuable enough to be a part of the domain, which represents the relevant knowledge. If they do not agree on the value of the production, it will not influence the domain. In Csikszentmihalyi’s view, a novel product becomes creative only after it goes through the whole cycle
10
Figure 2.1 – Csikszentmihalyi’s systems view of creativity
Based on the definition mentioned above, Chris Bilton (2007) adds intention as a necessary part of creativity. Undeniably, accidental occurrence of creativity happens from time to time, and it also makes contribution to the society. However, this unintentional creativity is by no means researchable. Therefore, it should be excluded from the research.
Furthermore, Amabile (1997) distinguishes creativity from innovation. Creativity is the first step of innovation, which is the successful implementation of those novel and appropriate ideas. She also points out that creativity is a necessary but not sufficient condition for innovation.
Robert W. Weisberg has discussed creativity from the psychology perspective. His primarily interest is in the creative thinking. He has focused his study on the cognitive processes involved in the intentional production of novelty (Temple University, 2009). His theory makes a counterpoint when understanding creativity, since he has refuted many of the ideas presented above.
Weisberg (2006) has refuted issues such as the concept of novelty, intentionality or usefulness. As we have been discussing, one of the critical issues identified by the majority of researchers is the concept of novelty; the outcome must be new. However, Weisberg (2006) has introduced the debate of novelty for the person or novelty for the world. Weisberg belongs to the person-side of the discussion. He agrees with the idea that as long as an individual follows the creative thinking or creative process to generate an innovation, it can be considered novel (Weisberg, 2006).
In addition, Weisberg (2006) agrees with the notion of intention. Creativity must imply intentionality. The creative person must have a desire direction toward some object or state of affairs (Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, 2003). Weisberg (2006) only considers the existence of creativity, when an individual with any sort of purpose produces an innovation.
However, his main counterpoint concerns with the inclusion of value in the definition of creativity. The majority of the researchers agree on combination of novelty and value when defining creativity. For instance, Csikszentmihalyi (cited in Weisberg, 2006) has discussed deeply the relevance of value and novelty when labelling something as creative. The majority of the researchers subscribe to Csikszentmihalyi ‘s theory, but not Weisberg. According to Weisberg (2006), all we need to consider in order to label something as creative is to be novel for the individual and be produced intentionally. Weisberg (2006) says that there is no solid foundation for the discussion of value from the psychological perspective; it just makes difficult to discuss and understand creativity, since we would be analyzing creativity through time.
On the other hand, Weisberg (2006) also recognizes that his theory of intentionality novelty is to some extent included in the theory of intentional novelty plus value. Weisberg has received many critics for leaving value out of his theory. The main critic refers to the idea that his theory could embrace ideas or inventions that fail. Weisberg (2006) argues that if an individual has spent time and efforts on it, and the outcome is labelled as novel according the individual’s thinking and reasoning process, then it should be considered creative. However, people may find it useless or do not like it. But this is a different assessment from whether the outcome is creative. Weisberg (2006) also adds that there are many cases in which a tremendous failure or an acceptable idea has driven afterwards to a genius production.
After all his counterpoints, Weisberg (2006) suggest a possible working definition for creativity: “Creative thinking occurs when a person intentionally produces novel product while working on some
tasks”. Weisberg (2006) also states the society value these innovations highly, and sometimes not,
but all of them are creative outcomes.
As we have mentioned above, Weisberg focuses his definition from the psychological perspective. However, we are strongly interested in the impact of creativity in the business world. For this reason, we would consider more interesting to refer to creativity as a combination of intentional novelty and usefulness within a certain context.
12
perspectives. The possible answers have varied from outside the mind to ordinary conscious thinking. In order to get a better understanding about creativity, we have considered adequate to make a short review of the main theories that discuss creativity.
2.2.1. The Greeks and the Classics
The quest of the origin of new ideas is not a new phenomenon; it has been of interest for centuries. Classical Greek philosophers and thinkers, such as Plato and Aristotle, made conjectures about how creative ideas came about. The Greeks suggested the idea that creative ideas were a gift from the Gods. The Greek mythology said that the Muses played a central in producing creative ideas (cited in Weisberg, 2006). The Muses were the nine daughters of Zeus, the King of the Gods; and each of them was in charge of a separate field. For example, Terpsichore ruled over the domain of dance and dramatic chorus, and her emblem was lyre (Britannica, 2008).
Dante Alighieri, in Canto II of The Inferno:
“O Muses, O high genius, aid me now! O memory that engraved the things I saw, Here shall your worth be manifest to all!”
(Anthony Esolen translation, 2002)
Translating the previous idea into the discussion, it means that creative ideas were generated outside the ordinary or normal reasoning process. Actually, they were originated outside individuals; the Muses put those ideas into an individual’s mind. The individuals served as mere “messengers” or “conduits” of those ideas. The Gods used certain individuals to present creative ideas to the rest of the people. What remains nowadays from this school of thought can be seen each time a person says: “I got an inspiration”. We use the expression inspiration because creative ideas are breathed in (cited in Weisberg, 2006).
According to Murray (cited in Weisberg, 2006), the most common belief of the Greeks was that a person in the throes of creativity was completely out of his or her mind. For instance, Plato described a poem as a process that happen outside the poet’s mind. But the following generation of philosophers, headed by Aristotle, directly concluded that states of mental illness played a central role in the generation of new ideas.
Nevertheless, these ideas have impact nowadays. Although the sources of creativity have moved to inner individual process, the underlying notion is still the same (Weisberg, 2006).
To sum up, the theories of creativity in ancient Greece is that a creative idea is a gift from the Gods. It has nothing to do with the individual who has the creative idea, but with the Gods who gives the individual the creative idea. This is a mysterious explanation of creativity.
Figure 2.2 – The Greek’s mysterious explanation of creativity
2.2.2. Unconscious Thinking –Sigmund Freud & Henri Poincaré
Sigmund Freud (cited in Weisberg, 2006) introduced unconscious thinking into the explanation of creativity; and others, such as Cskszentmihalyi, have taken up the baton of the Freudian view at the present time (cited in Weisberg, 2006). Following Freud’s idea, unconscious needs and conflicts have a big impact on determining both the “subject matter that creative individuals
dealt with and the way they portrayed it” (cited in Weisberg, 2006).
In theories highly influenced by Freud’s idea, the person that has generated the idea cannot argue it deeply, since many of the connections behind the creative idea happened unconsciously. Therefore, the creator is not able to make any argument on a conscious level. For example, Gedo has made an analysis of Picasso’s paintings, in which the Spanish artist tended to paint female figures or dead babies. Gedo has concluded, using the Freudianan perspective, that Picasso’s work casts his childhood trauma (cited in Weisberg, 2006).
Henri Poincaré had a different perspective of the unconscious thinking in creativity. Poincaré was one of the most influential mathematicians and theoretical physicists of the 19th century. He was also a philosopher of science. Through all his studies, he concluded that the processes occurred during the unconsciousness had big impact on his own creative thinking (cited in Weisberg, 2006).
14
Therefore, he suggested an unconscious “incubation”; individuals could have the capacity of thinking unconsciously about a certain matter while consciously thinking about something completely different (cited in Weisberg, 2006).
2.2.3. Leaps of insights
Gestalt psychologists have introduced in the discussion of creativity the notion of leaps of insight, which is closely linked with the importance of unconscious processing in creative thinking. According to this theory of mind, just “productive thinking” could lead to true creative advances. An individual must think productively to go beyond what have been discussed before. “Productive
thinking” must make a fracture from the past. If individuals just discuss what have been discussed
before, that was labelled by Gestalt psychologists as “reproductive thinking”. Gestalt psychologists also suggested that if an individual uses systematically “reproductive thinking”, he or she would not be able to generate new ideas (cited in Weisberg, 2006).
To some extent, the notion of leaps of insight in creativity is connected with other views of extraordinary thinking, since frequently the leaps of insight are explained by using an unconscious processes (cited in Weisberg, 2006).
2.2.4. Divergent Thinking and Creative Personality
From this point the discussion of creativity has taken a different direction. Guilford (cited in Weisberg, 2006) built a theory of how creative thinking works, and he tried to identify and measure the creative thinking ability. The main point of his theory was the individual’s ability to identify the existence of a problem in a certain domain. The individual must show sensitivity to problems. In summary, if the individual do not see the problem, there would be no option to generate any creative solution.
As well, he agreed with the Gestalt psychologists’ idea of breaking away from the past, also called divergent thinking. This sort of thinking does not take into consideration old assumptions, and it creates novel ideas as the foundations of the creative outcomes (cited in Weisberg, 2006). However, Gildford also suggested that we also need convergent thinking to narrow down these new creative ideas. We need to be able to select the best ones. According to Gildford, creativity is not a result an individual “act of genius” but of a combination of two different styles of thinking: convergent and divergent thinking (cited in Bilton, 2006).
Divergent Thinking Convergent Thinking Thinking around or away from the problem Thinking through or into the problem
Discontinuity / Break Continuity
“Dig another hole” “Dig a deeper hole”
Spontaneous, informal, random Systematic, formal, focused
Remove constraints Work with constraints
Sub-consciousness process Conscious process
Table 2.1 – Two theories of creative thinking (Bilton, 2006)
In addition, Gildford also attempted to study the psychological characteristics of creative people. His work was a pioneer and a stimulus to the psychometric stream of creative research. He proposed that an individual’s personality has an important role in making a person creative.
These theories, including unconscious thinking, leaps of insights, divergent thinking and creative personality, try to consider the generation of creativity as a mechanism of thinking. Different from ancient Greek theories, the origin of creativity moves from outside into individuals’ heads, and creativity is discussed mainly from the perspective of psychology. Though the mechanisms theorists advocate vary from one to another, it is a great advance that people begin to explore inner origin of creativity.
Figure 2.3 – Creativity is located in the thinking process.
2.2.5. Psychometric Perspective
This psychometric perspective has led to the development of confluence models of creativity. The main theories under this umbrella are Amabile’s componential theory of creativity and the investment theory of creativity of Sternberg and Lubart. This confluence models try to sort out the different factors behind creativity.
16
2.2.5.1. Amabile’s Componential Model
Teresa Amabile has developed her study in both the field of psychology and management. Amabile’s (1997) componential theory of creativity assumes that “all humans with normal capacities are
able to produce at least moderately creative work in some domain”. Moreover, the social and the work
environment have a big impact on both the level and the frequency of the creative behaviour.
Amabile (1997) has sorted out three different components of individual creativity: expertise, creative-thinking and intrinsic task motivation are the three major components of individual creativity.
Figure 2.4 - Component model of creativity (Amabile, 1997)
- Expertise indicates the knowledge and experience that a person has in the broad domain of his or her work. The dominant relevant skills are the foundation of creative work. Special talents in certain domain are one of components of expertise; however, by understanding and memorizing knowledge, improving proficiency and accumulating specific experience, expertise can be increased to some extent (Amabile, 1997).
- Creative thinking refers how people find approaches to problems and solutions. The expertise of a person must be combined with his/her creative thinking skills so that creative work can be produced. Amabile (1997) points out that these skills include a cognitive style favourable to taking new perspectives on problems, an application of techniques for the exploration of new cognitive pathways, and a working style conducive to persistent, energetic pursuit of one’s work. Creative thinking relates to personality characteristics. Independent, self-disciplined, risk-taking oriented people are more likely to be those with creative thinking skills (Amabile, 1997).
- Task motivation. Expertises and creative thinking skills are critical to a creative work; however, the person’s attitude toward the task is critical in determining whether he or she will respond creatively to it. This means that if a person is motivated to do his or her task, chances are high that he or she becomes creative. There are two different types of motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic motivation; that will be discussed later. In summary, many studies have found evidences that “people will be most creative when they feel motivated primarily by
the interest, satisfaction, and challenge of the work itself, and not by external pressures” (Amabile, 1997). 2.2.5.2. Sternberg and Lubart: the Invest Theory of Creativity
Sternberg and Lubart’s (cited in Weisberg, 2006) investment theory of creativity assumes that creators buy low and sell high. Buying low indicates that creators will put forward ideas, which are not popular and try to persuade others to accept the ideas. After the ideas become popular, the creators will move to work on other unpopular ideas, which mean selling high. Furthermore, Sterngberg et al. (1997) also suggest a componential model of creativity following the investment theory. They argue that several factors will influence human beings’ creativity, i.e. knowledge, intellectual abilities, thinking style preferences, personality, environment and motivation.
Amabile’s Componential Model
Expertise Thinking Skills Task Motivation
Sternberg and Lubart’s Investment Theory Intellectual
abilities Knowledge
Thinking
Skills Personality Motivation Environment
Table 2.2 – Two confluence models of creativity (Weisberg, 2006)
The theories of Amabile, Sternberg and Lubart follow the psychological tradition. However, they widen the research area and take issues such as motivation, knowledge and environment into consideration. The change of researching direction makes the cross-discipline possible. Because creativity is a very important topic in business world, it began to enter management research. The discussion of motivation, how to build a creativity-friendly environment, how to manage creative talents and alike has become a hot spot in business.
18
Figure 2.5 – The psychometric perspective of creativity
2.2.6. Evolutionary Theories of Creativity
The theory of natural selection of Charles Darwin published in his book “On the Origin of the
Species”, had also influence in the discussion of creativity. Donald Campbell (cited in Weisberg, 2006)
proposed an analysis of the idea generation using Darwin’s theory. He tried to make an analogy between an evolution of ideas and the evolution of species, based on the natural selection. Campbell suggested that in first stage of this process there was a blind and random idea generation. He stated that just if those ideas clearly deviate from the past, then there were truly creative ideas. After the idea generation, it is time to prove whether those ideas meet the specificities of the problem. Then, one or more ideas could be stored and used afterwards. In summary, Campbell’s model includes three conditions: a mechanism for introducing variation, a consistent selection process, and a mechanism for preserving and reproducing selected variations (cited in Simonton, 1998).
Campbel’s ideas were developed forward by Keith Simonton. He transformed Campbell’s model into a sort of confluence theory of creativity. Beside the three conditions proposed by Campbell; Simonton completed it with other components, such as personality traits, cognitive factors, the influence of the environment, and so on (cited in Weisberg, 2006).
2.2.7. Cognitive Perspective: Creative Thinking and Ordinary Thinking
Till this point the majority of the models and theories discussed require thinking
“out-side-of-the-box”. The box contains all our past experiences, habits and behaviours; and it is constraining us
when being creative. In someway, there is a tension between creativity and experience (Weisberg, 2006).
Nevertheless, the cognitive perspective suggests that creative thinking is basically the same as the reasoning process used daily. Among others, Weisberg (2006) states that creative thinking is just ordinary thinking. The cognitive perspective may be focus more on the outcome than in the process
itself. Weisberg argue that in many occasions, the impact of the outcome could be high, but the mechanism used to generate that outcome is very ordinary (Weisberg, 2006).
The creative thinking and ordinary thinking theory makes the target of creativity research even wider. It argues that creative ideas are not only generated by gifted people, and ordinary people can also produce creative sparks. This supports our research because most employees of companies are ordinary people, and how to make them creative is a valuable topic to discuss.
2.3. Motivation for Creativity
Amabile and Sternberg have identified similar factors, which influence creativity. Although a person’s development of expertise and practice of creative thinking skills can be influenced to some extent through various means, it is a long-term process and the cost is high. However, motivation, which is mentioned both in Amabile and Sternberg’s componential theories, is a relatively more efficient way to increase creativity in short term. According to “Pareto principle”, one should not spend 80% of his or her resource in one area in order to get the last 20% of return. It is the same for creativity. Amabile (1997) points out that motivation is the area which managers should pay more attention to. Her studies show that all the components of creativity will be impacted on through various means, but the impact on motivation appears to be the most immediate and direct.
2.3.1. Abraham Maslow and his “Hierarchy of Needs”
Abraham Maslow has been considered the father of the humanistic psychology, and he has gone down in history due to his conceptualization of a “hierarchy of needs” (Adair, 2006 et al). Maslow classified the human needs into five different categories. It is very common to see his theory in a sort of pyramid. From the educational perspective, it is very practical to sketch them. However, Maslow never discussed them in that way.
Maslow’s studies had a strong influence from the ideas of Sigmund Freud. Alfred Adler, a disciple of Freud, influenced Maslow with his contribution to psychology to a very large extent (Adair, 2006).
Maslow’s theory of motivation is so far one of the most influential theories in psychology, but it also has impact in other fields, such as management. His theory is the basis of many further theories about motivation. He pretended to establish a sort of “hierarchy of prepotency” in the realms of human needs, and by commenting the different steps we could gain more understanding about the concept of motivation (cited in Adair, 2006).
20
basic needs, but those needs are what make humans different from other types of living organisms (Maslow, 1943).
Maslow (1943) distinguished between five different categories of needs: physiological, safety, social, esteem and self-actualization needs. However, he has also identified another need out of this categorization: the aesthetic needs.
The physiological needs are those required for the survival of humans. Maslow (1943) pointed out that humans seek to satisfy them firstly rather than any others. The physiological needs are the more prepotents of all needs; and Maslow (cited in Adair, 2006) argued so with two different points. He suggested that different needs could be relatively independent from one order of needs to another. And he also stated that there is a localized physical base for the need. The physiological needs may include the need of breathing, the need of water or food, the need of homeostasis, or the need of sex (Maslow, 1943).
“For our chronologically and extremely hungry man, Utopia can be defined simply as a place where there is plenty of
food,... Such a man may fairly be said to live by breath alone” (Maslow, 1943)
Once an individuals has satisfied the physiological needs, another sort of needs arise; the individual is not longer motivated to cover them. Maslow (1943) states that the second order of needs are those related with the “safety of the organism”. Generally, people feel more secure dealing with familiar issues rather than unfamiliar; or with known rather than unknown. Maslow (cited in Adair, 2006) suggests that religions and philosophies have created a framework to create a sense of security and safety.
The third identified need by Maslow (cited by Adair, 2006) refers to the necessity of individuals to have relationship and emotions. Originally, Maslow (1943) refers them as “love needs”. People need to feel a sense of belonging and acceptance from the community (Cited by Adair, 2006).
After the “love needs”, Maslow (1943) identifies in fourth place the esteem needs. Maslow (1943) states that this needs include both self-esteem and the esteem of the others. Maslow (cited in Adair, 2006) sorts them in two set of subsidiaries. The first group refers to the desire for strength, or personal achievement. While the second set refers more to status, recognition and reputation.
The final need identified in the originally theory of Maslow (1943) is the need of self-actualization. Even if individuals have satisfied all possible needs, they will always feel discontent and relentlessness, unless individuals feel ultimately at peace with themselves.
Nevertheless, Maslow (cited in Adair, 2006) suggests that another set of needs could be attached to this hierarchy. People have been always attracted by the unknown, it seems to be an attractiveness. People feel the necessity to explore further. Maslow (cited in Adair, 2006) refers to this force as the aesthetic needs or the “motivation to realize one’s own maximum potential”. Moreover, Maslow (1943) refers to it as the “master motive”, being all other motives just a mere interpretation of it.
2.3.2. Douglas McGregor: Theory X and Theory Y
Maslow’s theory has a large acceptance in industry mainly thank to the work of Douglas McGregor who frame the “hierarchy of needs” into a model that embraces the more typical preoccupations of managers (Adair, 2006). McGregor has polarized Maslow’s assumptions into two different propositions about human behaviour: Theory X and Theory Y (McGregor, 1960).
Theory X represents the traditional managerial and leadership style in which control and direction are the main points. McGregor (1960) states that people have an inherent dislike of work, and if possible they will avoid it. McGregor (1960) suggests in this proposition that “management must
counteract an inherent human tendency to avoid work”. A particular managerial approach based on control,
coercion and punishment is required in order to achieve the organizational objectives. Therefore, people prefer to be delegated, but avoiding any sort of responsibilities.
On the other hand, Theory Y argues for the integration of the individual and organizational objectives. This proposition lies on the assumption that physical and mental efforts in work are natural. Therefore, managers can rely on other managerial attitudes such as direction and self-control. McGregor (1960) states that commitment to objectives is a function of rewards linked with their achievements. Moreover, individuals have a natural tendency toward learning and they accept and seek responsibility. In addition, he suggests that creativity is a matter of the entire organization and should be distributed among the entire population. He also states that organizations are not using the entire intellectual potential of the human beings (McGregor 1960).
McGregor (1960) concludes that a managerial approach based on Theory Y could be an effective manner to raise employees’ motivation. However, he recognizes that Theory X is more suitable for competing in the industry, at least under the circumstances in which it was formulated: the modern era.
2.3.3. Frederick Herzberg and his Motivator-Hygiene Theory
22
Firstly, Herzberg (1987) gives a thoroughly explanation about what is motivation. He does so by comparing it with movement. The effect of both may be the same, but the ignite source and the consequences are totally different. Herzberg refers to movement as those external incentives that make the employees to react. Nevertheless, they also get used to them and their effects tend to become futile. It is linked with external extrinsic reward. He distinguishes between negative psychical movement, negative psychological movement and positive psychological movement. Nevertheless, these practices are not motivation; they could be labelled as rape or seduction, depending on whether they are positive or negative.
Typically, managers believe that they are influencing motivation by using movement practices. Herzberg (1987) has identified that several movement practices are totally misused from the perspective of motivation: reducing time spent at work, increasing salaries, external benefits, training, or communication issues. For instance, managers believe that reducing the number of hours spent per week is a way to influence motivation; nevertheless, motivated employees always seek more time at work, not less.
On the other hand, when Herzberg (1987) refers to motivation, he refers to the inner generation of one’s own. He argues that an individual does not need any outside stimulus; it is vastly enough with the inner passion of doing something.
Based upon this definition of motivation, Herzberg (1987) develops his motivator-hygiene theory. Through a large research, he has concluded that there are factors in the workplace with a positive impact on job satisfaction (motivation) and other that lead to job dissatisfaction, which is not the antonymous of job satisfaction, but no job satisfaction.
Hygiene Factors - Company policy - Administration - Supervision - Interpersonal relationships - Working conditions - Salary - Status - Security Motivators - Achievement - Recognition - Work itself - Responsibility - Growth - Advancement
Herzberg (1987) has identified the hygiene factors as the main cause of job dissatisfaction. Its influence can at best create no dissatisfaction in the workplace. Nevertheless, the absence or misuse of one of them will lead to job dissatisfaction. According to Herzberg, these kind of factors are related with biological needs and are built for avoid any pain from the environment.
On the other side of the theory, Herzberg (1987) has discussed the motivators or those factors that exert a positive influence in the job satisfaction. Therefore, if managers work on them, they could see their employees’ motivation be increased. These factors are more in connection with the sense of achievement and the psychological growth of the employee.
At this point, Herzberg (1987) has introduced the term enrichment. He postulates for job enrichment as a manner to influence his motivator-hygiene theory. Managers need to increase the job enrichment to bring about effective utilization of the human resources. By doing so, managers will provide means of psychological growth for their employees. Nevertheless, the term enrichment should not be misunderstood with the term enlargement, which would just make the job structurally bigger.
2.3.4. Victor Vroom and his Expectancy Theory
Victor Vroom (1965) suggests motivation results from rational expectancy. He establishes the expectancy theory on the assumption that human beings make choices in order to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. Meanwhile, he assumes that employees will be motivated when they believe that:
Figure 2.6 - Expectancy Theory (British Columbia Institute of Technology, 2009)
- Effort will lead to improvement of job performance.
- Better job performance will result in desired rewards, extrinsic such as salary, promotion, benefit, and intrinsic such as satisfaction.
24
Based on the three assumptions mentioned above, Vroom puts forward three relevant concepts, expectancy, instrumentality and valence. Expectancy refers to the extent of an employee’s belief about whether or not his or her efforts will lead to an improvement of job performance. The employee will be motivated only if he or she believes that the performance is possibly attainable. Then Vroom puts forward instrumentality. It refers to the degree of an employee’s belief about whether or not a certain job performance will result in a certain outcome as a reward. The employee will be motivated only if he or she believes that an expected reward will follow the job performance. In last term, valence refers to the value an employee puts on the reward he or she will get due to certain job performance. If the employee highly values the reward, he or she will be motivated to make an effort to attain the certain job performance.
Vroom suggests (1965) that an employee’s beliefs about expectancy, instrumentality and valence interact psychologically to create a motivational force. As a consequence, that the employee acts in ways that bring pleasure and avoid pain.
2.3.5. Amabile’s Extrinsic & Intrinsic Theory
Amabile (1997) discusses two types of motivation, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is driven by a person’s internal interest and desire to do something, such as curiosity, enjoyment, and sense of challenge. Extrinsic motivation comes from outside a person, such as reward, promotion, or deadline. A number of studies have shown that a primarily intrinsic motivation will be more conducive to creativity than a primarily extrinsic motivation.
The antagonism model of the interaction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation is accepted by many researchers, saying as extrinsic motivation for an activity increases, intrinsic motivation must decrease (cited in Amabile, 1997). However, Amabile (1997) put forward her Intrinsic Motivation Principle: “Intrinsic motivation is conducive to creativity. Controlling extrinsic motivation is
detrimental to creativity, but informational or enabling extrinsic motivation can be conducive, particularly if initial levels of intrinsic motivation are high”.
Amabile’s (1997) study reveals extrinsic motivation may combine with intrinsic motivation as a synergism instead of an antagonism under three conditions. First, a person must have high initial intrinsic motivation state. If the person is deeply involved in the work due to personal interests or other internal factors, which means the initial intrinsic motivation is high; the extrinsic motivation is less likely to undermine intrinsic motivation.
Second, certain types of extrinsic motivation must be used. Amabile (1997) summarizes three types of extrinsic motivators, informational, enabling and controlling extrinsic motivators. Informational motivator means those types of reward, recognition or feedback, which confirm
competence or provide information on how to improve performance. Enabling motivator means those types of reward, recognition or feedback, which improve the person’s involvement in the job. These two are called synergistic motivators. Other types which constrain how work can be done are called controlling motivator.
Third, the timing of extrinsic motivation is important. As mentioned, a creative idea should have both novelty and usefulness. Therefore, some stages of the creative process are more important for novelty and some other stages are more important for usefulness. The synergistic extrinsic motivation may most possibly function well at the stages for usefulness, but not function ideally at the stages for novelty.
2.3.6. Adair and the Fifty-Fifty Rule
The “Pareto principle” may be understood in many different ways. One of its interpretations suggests that “80% of your really productive and creative work will be done in 20% of your time” (cited in Adair, 2006). John Adair (2006) has based on it to formulate the fifty-fifty rule of motivation. He states that fifty percent of motivation resides inside the person, and the other fifty percent comes from outside. Of course, he also says that percentages should not be taken as exact proportion. But this rule helps us to understand the role of the environment and leadership in the field of motivation.
The fifty-fifty rule (Adair, 2006) distributes the responsibility of motivation between followers and leaders. Adair does not conceive motivation just as inside mechanism, but he also puts responsibility to managers and leaders in this issue. He refers to leadership as “the art to work with the
natural grain of the particular wood of humanity which comes to hand”.
It is convenient to discuss this theory for at least two reasons. The fifty-fifty rule brings us back to the ground, to the reality. It could be seen as an invitation to managers and leaders to take their challenge of playing his role in the motivation before criticizing the quality of their employees’ work. In addition, this rule matches perfectly with the original definition of motivation. By analyzing the etymology meaning of motivation, it came from the Latin expression “moveo”, we can conclude that it could be caused both by “inner impulse or proclivity” or “outer situations or stimuli” (Adair, 2006).
All these theories mentioned above discuss motivation in general terms. It is not the motivation specifically for creativity. However, we believe that our focus, motivation for creativity, is a part of the general motivation. The theories can be compatible. When an employee is motivated to do a good job, usually he or she is motivated to be creative at the same time. Therefore, we
26 2.4. The Link with Management and Leadership
2.4.1. Amabile’s Componential Theory
Using Amabile’s (1997) studies, creativity is the first step of innovation. As mentioned before, creativity lies on the level of individuals and has three main components, i.e. expertise, creativity thinking skills and task motivation. Furthermore, Amabile (1997) emphasizes the importance of working environment which is on the level of organization and decides innovation of the organization. According to her studies (1997), the working environment within an organization can make the difference between the production of new, useful ideas for innovative business growth and the continuance of old, progressively less useful routine. The working environment has a major impact on individual motivation. Therefore, the individual creativity is influenced by environment due to the impact on motivation. In turn, the individual creativity supplies an organization with the sources of innovation.
Figure 2.7 - Impact of the organizational environment on creativity (Amabile, 1997)
Amabile (1997) has discussed three major components of the working environment within organizations, organizational motivation to innovate, resources and management practices.
- Organizational motivation to innovate consists of orientation of organization toward innovation and supports for creativity and innovation in an organization. The orientation of
